Gyula Kosice

Gyula Kosice (born Ferdinand Fallik; April 26, 1924 – May 25, 2016) was a Czechoslovakian-born Argentine sculptor, plastic artist, and poet. He was one of the most important figures in kinetic and luminal art and luminance vanguard.

He was born in an ethnic Hungarian family in 1924. Kosice used his natal city name as artist name. He was one of the precursors of concrete and non-figurative art in Latin America. He used, for the first time in international art scene, water and neon gas as part of an artwork. Light and movement were also present in his works.

He created monumental sculptures, hydrospatial walks, hydrowalls, etc. He made more than 40 personal and 500 collective exhibitions all over the world.

Early Career - 1940s

In the early 1940s, Gyula started his first non-figurative drawings, paintings, and sculptures. He studied Leonardo da Vinci’s work during this time, and also wrote texts and poems about interdisciplinary art.

Gyula Kosice’s art career really started in 1944. The focus in his early art career was about concrete, nonobjective art and how it could radically change society for the better. He worked alongside many other Argentinian artists who had the same mindset, publishing art journals with them. In 1944, he started his first art group, Arturo, by collaborating with Carmelo Arden Quin, Rhod Rothfuss and Torres-García. This was an art journal that had articles containing these artists’ responses to constructivist art and poems. That same year, he went with this group of artists to host Artconcret invention and El movimiento de arte concreto-invención, a couple private exhibitions on constructivist art in private homes. One of these private exhibitions was in the home of photographer Grete Stern.

In 1945, Kosice and the same group of artists went on to create an entirely new group in Buenos Aires that was known as the Arte Concreto Invención. This group was particularly influential to the art community, inspiring many other art groups to begin such as the major concrete art group Associatión Arte Concreto-Invención (led by Tomas Maldonado and consisted of Manuel Espinosa, Lidy Prati, Enio Iommi, Alfredo Hilto and Raúl Lozza along with four of his brothers).

In 1946, Gyula Kosice started the Grupo Madí alongside Carmelo Arden Quin, Rhod Ruthfuss and Martín Blaszco. The meaning of the group has been called into question many times, but Kosice claimed that the word “Madí” was made-up by the group and carried no meaning whatsoever. The main concern of this group was to reach out beyond the art community and to encourage people in all creative disciplines (such as dancers, architects, and actors) to carry the “Madí spirit”. They did this by including articles in their published journals on poems written by others, general art theories, reports on musical events, photos of other exhibitions, and a “Madí Dictionary”. Over the next few years, he hosted many international exhibitions with this group of artists. Kosice wrote the Madi Manifesto, where he explained that Madi art is the "absolute value" of the presence and theme of the work, and that it was only to be expressed by the unique formal characteristics of the creative discipline that it was made in, and nothing more. His examples were painting with color on a two-dimensional surface, or creating a sculpture that has "movement" but not adding or changing color.

In 1947, Kosice hosted his first personal exhibition of Madí Art at the Bohemien Club in Galerías Pacífico (Buenos Aires, Argentina), which was the first totally non-figurative exhibition in Latin-America.

In 1948, he was involved in a Madí exhibition at Réalités Nouvelles, Paris. He was invited by Del Morle and the governing board. He received the collaboration of the France Cultural Attach in Buenos Aires, M. Weibel Reichard.

In the late 1940s, Kosice was the first to use neon lighting in his artwork, using them to create non-representational patterns in what he called "Hydrokinetism".

Late Career and Death (1950's - 2016)

In the late 1950s, Gyula Kosice started to create his motorized “hydrokinetic” sculptures that incorporated the use of neon light, Plexiglas, aluminum, and water. These sculptures were Kosice’s experimentations with the perception of color, its motion, and how it can make the viewer feel visually unstable. The use of constantly shifting water combined with moving light was what created the feeling of instability as these elements were always in perpetual motion. These “hydrokinetic” sculptures had their roots in the concrete art movement, however they truly fit and thrived in the kinetic art movement.

In the 1970s, Kosice started the Ciudad Hidroespacial project that proposed creating a classless society by building an entirely new city. For many years, he worked on this project .

Legacy

Throughout his lifetime, Gyula Kosice hosted more than 40 personal exhibitions and participated in 500 collective exhibitions all over the world.

He is remembered for his innovative contributions to the kinetic art movement in Argentina. He was the first to use neon light and gas, creating nonrepresentational patterns in his sculptures. He created many monumental sculptures, hydrospatial walks, and hydrowalls using these elements.

Major Works

Royi (1944)

Gyula created this piece during the time of the Arturo art group’s first exhibitions in 1944. One of the very first artworks to depend on the viewer’s participation, Kosice created this wooden structure using hinges and wing nuts. The viewer is encouraged to move parts of the structure to position it as they want to, making this piece one of the first to rely on viewer participation.

Columnas Hidroluz (1965)

Translated as “Hydrolight Columns”, this work was made of plastic hemispherical containers that held cycling water inside. This work focused on the effects of light in shifting water on the viewer. As the water and air bubbles constantly moved, this work (and others like it) appeared to “defy the laws of gravity”, which made the viewer feel unstable.

Ciudad Hidroespacial (1971)

In 1971, Kosice started this large and radical project out of his interest for space travel and the desire for a classless society. He felt that contemporary architecture was centered around functionality for the powerful people in society more than anything else, and that this focus made the oppression of the lower class in Argentina much worse. Ciudad Hidroespacial consisted of many plexiglass models for architects to create a new large, self-sustaining cosmic city. It was also made of plastic, metal, and many other materials that were collaged onto pictures of cloudy skies.

Small list of exhibitions

1947

• Galerías Pacífico, Buenos Aires. (First all non figurative, abstract and kinetic exhibition in Latin America).

1953

• Galería Bonino, Buenos Aires.

1960

• Kosice, Galerie Denise René, Paris.
• Exhibition of spatial constructions and first hydraulic sculpture, Drian Gallery, London.

1963

• Galerie L'Oeil, Paris.

1964

• Galerie La Hune, Paris.

1965

• Terry Dintenfass Gallery, New York.

1966

• Galería de Arte Moderno, Córdoba, Argentina.

1967

• Galería Bonino, Buenos Aires.
• Kosice, Sculpture: water, light, movement. Galería Bonino, New York.

1968

• "100 obras de Kosice, un precursor", Centro de Artes Visuales, Instituto Torcuato Di Tella, Buenos Aires.
• Kosice, Galería Bonino, Buenos Aires.
• 150 meters of rain, Florida street, Buenos Aires.

1969

• Bijoux et sculptures d'eau, Galerie Lacloche, Paris.

1970

• Galería Estudio Actual, Caracas, Venezuela.

1971

• "La Ciudad Hidroespacial", Galería Bonino, Buenos Aires.

1972

• Galería de Arte del Banco Continental, Lima, Peru.
• G.K., Foyer del Teatro Municipal General San Martín, Buenos Aires.
• Exhibition organized by Museo de Arte Moderno de Buenos Aires.

1973

• Luis Arango Library, Bogotá, Colombia.

1974

• Kosice, Israel Museum, Jerusalem.
• Kosice bijoux hydrospatial, Espace Cardin, Paris.

1975

• La cite' hydrospatial. Espace Cardin, Paris, France.
• Kosice Works, Galería Pozzi, Buenos Aires.

1977

• Exhibition Kosice, aluminum relieves. 1945 - 50. Documents about Madí art. Departamento Cultural Librería de la Ciudad, Galería del Este, Buenos Aires.
• Hydrospatial Exhibition organized by Argentine "Confagua" and the ONU for the "Water World Conference", Mar del Plata, Argentina.

1979

• “Esculturas insólitas, pequeño formato, piezas únicas” Galería Birger, Buenos Aires.
• Hydrokinetic works, Galería Unika, Punta del Este, Uruguay.
• Hydrospatial City, City of Buenos Aires Galileo Galilei planetary.

1982

• Kosice, Hakone Open Air Museum, Tokyo, Japan.

1985

• Kosice's Monumental Works, Centro Cultural de la Ciudad de Buenos Aires.

1991

• Retrospective Exhibition, 1944 - 1990. Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes, Buenos Aires.

1999

• Anticipations, more than 80 works. Centro Cultural Recoleta, Buenos Aires.

2003

• “Homenaje a un creador multifacético. 62 años de trayectoria. Obras Digitales.” Centro Cultural Recoleta, Buenos Aires, 2003.

2005

• Little Kosice Room. Latin-American Art Museum, Austin, Texas, United States.
• Museo Provincial de Bellas Artes Rosa Galisteo de Rodríguez – 82nd Annual in Santa Fe, Argentina. Special Guest.

2006

• Madí Walk, at Florida Street (Buenos Aires).
• Tribute to Master Gyula Kosice in Culture and Art, Nation’s Senate, Buenos Aires, Argentina.

2007

• Merryl Lynch Arteaméricas, G. Kosice special guest representing Latin America. Miami, United States.

Published books

• Invención (1945)
• Golsé-se (1952)
• Peso y medida de Alberto Hidalgo (1953)
• Antología madí (1955)
• Geocultura de la Europa de hoy (1959)
• Poème hydraulique (1960)
• Arte hidrocinético (1968)
• La ciudad hidroespacial (1972)
• Arte y arquitectura del agua (1974)
• Arte madí (1982)
• Del Arte Madí a la Ciudad hidroespacial (1983)
• Obra poética (1984)
• Entrevisiones (1985)
• Teoría sobre el arte (1987)
• Kosice (1990)
• Arte y filosofía porvenirista (1996)
• Madigrafías y otros textos (2006)